All Love Pointless, Discovers Team Of Dumped Scientists

THE HUMAN INSTITUTION OF LOVE is an outmoded, stupid conceit which “may as well be abandoned right now”, according to a team of scientists at Imperial College London, who happen to have just been dumped.

“Over the last decade, we’ve personally experimented with a huge sample of London’s singles”, said Dr Stefan Talbot, wiping tears from a battered Polaroid of happier times. “And we’ve tried to engineer a lasting relationship of true love with any one of them. But every time we’ve tried it, the results have come back negative. You can’t argue with the figures.”

The scientists worked tirelessly to remove irrelevant variables from their study, including moustaches, weight problems, limited knowledge of pop culture, sobriety, having an annoying laugh, bad hair and cheap clothes, but none of these made a difference to the overall outcome.

“It’s all just shit, isn’t it? Love, I mean”, said Talbot, presenting the results of the study to anyone who would listen. “Sometimes I wonder why we even bother. I mean, we’re talking a p-value of 0.01 here. Eventually you just have to accept the unbearable weight of accumulated evidence.”

“Fucking humanity,” added Kelly Reynolds, Ph.D candidate in Emotional Trauma, swigging vermouth from a test tube. “All the current literature claims that love’s the be all and end all, but I loved David and now he’s off banging that cow from the ecology lab. This is hugely significant data.”

The study concludes that while love may serve as a useful theoretical construct during the early stages of relationships, it is ultimately a fiction and an artifact of selection bias. “We’ve found that the data can better be explained by an existential nihilism that denies all possibility of happiness ever,” said Talbot, carving “JUSTINE” onto his thigh with a key.

Though fellow participant Adam Holmes got married last year, the team insist their conclusion remains solid, and that Adam’s just a gullible moron who’s scared of dying alone.